Sir Chris Wormald must not shy away from ambitious civil service reform

All civil servants take direction from and implement the policies of the government of the day, but the cabinet secretary also has a particular responsibility to speak truth to power behind closed doors. As head of the civil service, they also lead over half a million officials – and are charged with motivating them, safeguarding their impartiality, and defending them when necessary. So speaking in public means treading a particularly fine line.

Sir Chris Wormald, the new cabinet secretary, appeared in front of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) last week, and his experience (he reminded MPs that this was his 100th select committee appearance) ensured he committed no news. He did, however, provide some clues around his likely approach to the new role.

The new cabinet secretary’s experience before select committees showed

Wormald’s first PACAC appearance covered familiar ground, and successive cabinet secretaries would have given similar answers to much of what was discussed. When questioned about splitting the roles of cabinet secretary and head of the civil service, how much civil servants should be working from home, historic tensions with ministers and updating the cabinet manual, Wormald was able to politely engage with the arguments while sticking firmly to ministers’ positions.

This is not to diminish the importance of, for example, the cabinet secretary publicly and vocally asserting the impartiality of civil servants or the value of a constructive working relationship with ministers. But Wormald would not have broken a sweat over these subjects.

Wormald showed signs of caution around civil service reform

Conspicuous by its absence during this session was a sense of urgency around much-needed Whitehall reform – despite what the government has said about its plans to govern differently, and the real pressures of the moment. Indeed, while all recent cabinet secretaries have faced significant challenges, the serious international picture and extent of domestic strains mean Wormald started his job at a particularly difficult time. For the civil service to be capable of meeting these challenges, radical reform is needed.

There were some hints of an appetite for change. Wormald spoke, for example, of plans to reorganise No10 and the Cabinet Office ‘along the lines’ of countries with “bigger offices of the Prime Minister of President” – in line with proposals made by the Institute last year. He also discussed restructuring the Cabinet Office itself, clarifying which elements report to him and which to Cat Little, the permanent secretary – and about the introduction of ‘mission boards’ (even if he wasn’t willing to clarify how they will operate alongside traditional cabinet committees).

But there were also signs of resistance to structural change. Discussing how the international situation would affect the workings of government, blurring the boundary between domestic and international issues, Wormald said that “there is not a structure that you can create that solves the problem”. On mission-led government, he appeared to emphasise the importance of shifting how officials think about their work – bringing a collaborative, problem-solving approach instead of advocating purely on behalf of their own department – over “structural solutions”. The new mission delivery unit was mentioned only in passing.

The same was true of the problems around inconsistent grade structures across the civil service and the high turnover that results from officials having to move roles to get a pay rise. Wormald initially dismissed the latter challenge as “very difficult to change”, before questioning whether “the game is worth the candle” and suggesting that such structural questions should be ‘parked’.

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Structural reform is needed alongside behavioural change

He is, of course, right that behaviour and ways of working matter hugely. But there is a limit to how much behavioural change is possible, or how much longstanding impact it can have, without more concrete structural reform. As is true in any organisation, civil servants’ behaviour is shaped by the structures around them, as they respond to the incentives they create. And as the Institute has long argued, faulty structures in the civil service frequently create perverse incentives that lead to the very behaviours that limit the ability of the civil service to deliver, and which the cabinet secretary has said he wants to change.

Inevitably, many of the long-running structural challenges in the civil service – from excessive turnover to ineffective recruitment and poor performance management – will never feel truly urgent. That is particularly true at a time like this, with such huge external pressures and potential turmoil. But these challenges are attritional by nature. There will not be a single crisis point where their impact becomes unanswerably clear, but little by little the civil service’s capability and effectiveness are being eroded. And the cumulative impact can sometimes be noticed by politicians – hence, perhaps, the prime minister’s recent talk of tepid baths and managed decline.  If this is the case, the cabinet secretary will need to respond to that perception. But either way, the problems must be fixed.

Reform of the civil service is not an either / or choice – meaningful structural reforms are needed to enable and embed behavioural change. The new cabinet secretary should remember that as the challenges multiply in the months ahead.